Stelis capsula Luer & Hirtz 2004 SECTION Labiatae
Drawing by © Carl Luer and The Epidendra Website
EARLY
Common Name The Little Box Stelis [refers to the semi-closed sepals]
Flower Size .16” [4 mm]
Found in Morona-Santiago province of Ecuador at elevations around 2150 meters as a mini-miniature sized, cold growing, caespitose epiphyte with erect, slender ramicauls enveloped by 2 loose, tubular sheaths and another at the base and carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly elliptical, subacute, narrowly cuneate below into the indistinct petiolate base leaf that blooms in the early summer on an erect,strict, secund congested, 4.8” [12 cm] long including the 1.6” [4 cm] long peduncle, mostly simultaneously many flowered inflorescence arising through a spathe from an annulus below the apex of the ramicaul with oblique, infundibular, acute, longer than the ovary floral bracts.
Distinguished by the congested, secund, many flowered raceme that far exceeds the leaf and sepals connate basally into a cup with the laterals directed forward. The petals are oblong and three veined. The lip is subquadrate and very shallow." Luer 2004
Synonyms
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
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